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Tuesday 06 Jun 2023
Lyttle departs from role with Irish FA

Gerard Lyttle has left his post as manager of Northern Ireland’s Under-17 and Under-19 teams.

Lyttle was appointed to the role in February 2021 after stepping up from the Irish FA JD Academy in collaboration with UEFA, where he was head coach.

He said: “Firstly, I want to thank all the players and staff I worked with during my two years in charge, as well as those coaches I have managed to help in their own coaching journey.

“It has been a privilege and a pleasure to manage these talented teams and an honour to help make a little bit of history by leading both sides to the elite group stages of the European Championships at the same time - for the first time.

“My role was to help our young players develop both on and off the pitch. To see the progression of many of them, at both club level and international level with some now in the senior Northern Ireland squad, has been a high point of my tenure.”

Lyttle started his coaching career in 2009 with Belfast-based junior club Malachians before joining the coaching set-up at Cliftonville under the late Tommy Breslin where he helped coach the team to back to back league and League Cup doubles.

He was subsequently appointed manager of the Reds in October 2015 and won the League Cup with them in 2016 and in the same year won a play-off to qualify for the Europa League qualifying rounds.

He resigned from Cliftonville in April 2017 to take up the post of full-time manager at League of Ireland Premier Division club Sligo Rovers. He left Sligo in October 2018 before joining the Irish FA as a senior coach.